Wave Mandate

by Schneider, A. C.

  All the while, Kedbury was yelling from across the room, “Let’m come. I want them to come!” his paunchy face red with anger, body rigid, holding himself back while leaning forward, hands propping himself up on his table. Brandolen tapped pitifully with his gavel, calling the Chamber to order.

  Alnamar, the ranking Island Guardsman and head of Parliament security, took control of the situation by standing in the middle of the room, raising his hands and announcing above the commotion, “THERE MAY BE SURVIVORS FROM THE NEBULOUS!” The Chamber quieted down and focused on the Island Guard officer, not all at once but incrementally, as if the reverse throttle of a ship were being applied, slow and steady-like. Alnamar repeated what he had just declared in a calmer voice. “There may yet be survivors from the Nebulous.”

  “What are you talking about?” demanded Kedbury, more flustered now than he was during the commotion.

  “This hasn’t been released,” explained Alnamar.

  “What hasn’t been released?” The way Kedbury emphasized the word ‘What’ made it clear his restraint had reached its breaking point.

  Alnamar sighed, his shoulders sinking under the weight of responsibility. The look suited him, though, like an old coat molding to his body after so many years of use. “I just received word and the reports are still filtering in. Apparently several Nebulous Life Pods have been discovered floating near one of our security checkpoints. Preliminary investigations reveal severe burn scarring and their doors have been fused shut, but the hulls appear to be intact. We’re bringing them in for further investigation.”

  “And you’re sure these are from the Nebulous?” asked Kedbury.

  “We can’t be sure if anything just yet, Representative.”

  Some other members of Parliament awoke from their stunned state. “Why weren’t we told about this sooner?” demanded Fuller.

  Alnamar addressed the entire room with his answer. “As I’ve already told you, this news is still breaking. We received the first reports when the Patriarch entered the Chamber. You now know as much as I do.”

  “My son?” Kedbury addressed his question to no one in particular; life, the Creator perhaps, but no one else.

  Alnamar answered anyway. “We don’t know.”

  Kedbury could be seen by all present searching his thoughts and running through the probabilities and then the possibilities, not sure which to allow himself to believe. His body became heavy and he had to lean on his table for support, all his strength rerouted toward handling this new emotional burden. “I must get to those pods,” he said at last.

  “Of course, Representative.” Alnamar walked over and snaked an arm around Kedbury, supporting him and helping him to maneuver out and around his table. The senior Guardsman signaled to a young cadet who came quickly and took over for his commander, however, Kedbury had regained some of his composure by then and relieved the young cadet, waving him off and making his way with new found speed and purpose out the Chamber doors, the cadet trailing closely behind.

  Jorgenson, the Representative from Isle Thalus, broke the prevailing silence. “Perhaps we should be addressing our questions to you then, Alnamar? When will the Island Guard be able to secure our shipping lanes and provide assurances to our corporations?”

  The question was well beyond Alnamar’s purview and his apologetic response made that clear. “I’m merely the commander of the force stationed here at Parliament.”

  “Well that’s just wonderful, isn’t it,” remarked Jorgenson, bitterly. “What exactly is the point of this session, anyway, will someone please tell me? Why did I drop everything to come all the way over here from Thalus if I can’t even bring back assurances to my constituents that they’ll no longer be massacred while trying to make a living?”

  “You want assurances?” cut in the Patriarch, his voice rising, blood temperature returning to its former boiling point, “Cease the systematic starvation of my people!”

  “So you admit it then,” Jorgenson accused, rounding on the Patriarch. “Your people are behind the raids!”

  “I admit to nothing but the onus of the Islands for their crimes committed against the innocent men, woman and children of the Mainland!”

  The Chamber erupted again into shouts from all sides. Island Guardsmen stood around uneasily. They hadn’t the manpower to contain a riot of some two hundred Islanders and another seventy Mainlanders. The situation was quickly spiraling out of control and no amount of strategic positioning was going to save them this time around.

  “THE RACE IS OVER!”

  At first it was just another shout mixed in with the others. “THE RACE IS OVER!” the voice repeated even louder. Representatives began turning toward the entranceway, something in the tone of this voice telling them its message was more important than any of the others competing for attention. A man stood under the threshold, his arms spread wide, each holding the edge of one of the Chamber’s two swinging doors, propping them open as he surveyed the chaos unfolding within.

  “Jonas!”

  His whispered name passed from one set of lips to another, spreading like wildfire. Most spoke it as a question of shocked disbelief, other intonations implied exasperation, as if to ask Who in all Creation is Jonas? For the Patriarch, Jonas’ appearance raised an entirely different question altogether: Why does this man return and my son does not?

  Only one in the room remained emotionless and capable of purposeful action. He made his way towards the Chamber entrance while Jonas continued addressing the assembly. “I was hoping to announce my return in a more formal setting, but I heard of certain recent events and this impromptu Parliamentary meeting being called as a result, so I thought, perhaps the sooner the better.”

  At this point the Patriarch saw the Academy Headmaster appear from seemingly nowhere, grab Jonas under the elbow and usher him out of the Chamber before anyone quite knew what was happening.

  Blumbrok stood from his chair and called after them. “Wait! Did you find the Mandate? Does this mean I won? Jonas! Where’s my ship?”

  The Patriarch had enough. “WHERE’S MY SON?”

  Chapter 20: Cheat

  The Headmaster’s Compound - Academy Island, Osmos

  “This is ridiculous. They’re robbing you, you’re being robbed.”

  “Thanks, Dunner.”

  “Genuinely robbed.”

  “OK, I get it.”

  “I’m just say’n. I mean cheating? Really? Me? Maybe. You? Please.”

  “Hey, I can cheat.”

  “You won that duel, Kel.”

  “I know I won that duel.”

  “And you are not going to let them take that away from you.”

  “True. Now why are you here?”

  “I’m not going to let you let them take that away from you.”

  “Ah, OK. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Of course, brother. Hey, how’s the shoulder?”

  Kelerin made a quick stop at the infirmary immediately following his duel to reset the shoulder Valix had dislocated for him. His arm was still in a sling but he wasn’t complaining, Valix’s whole body was still in the infirmary. “Pretty good, I think. I can probably get rid of this thing by now,” he said, lifting up the slung arm, “Thought I’d give it one more day, just to be sure.”

  “I hear Valix is all healed up and getting out. Supposed to be back in the rotation by the end of the day.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Is it?”

  Kelerin shrugged his indifference. They’d been sitting in the anteroom to the Headmaster’s office for the better part of an hour now, having made their way straight over after checking the Results & Rankings board and getting their little surprise.

  Initially they weren’t even going to check the board. It was never a question. There were no points to be tallied. Nothing was left to the judges. It was a clear knockout, literally so, right out of the room. For the briefest time following the match the two camps normally divided on Kelerin united
behind him, from pariah to popular overnight.

  Then a new day dawned and after a particularly enjoyable lunch session where Kelerin once again held court to his considerable new following, Dunner suggested they go check out the new listings on the Results & Rankings board, a celebratory gesture, which Kelerin initially declined.

  “C’mon, why not?” persisted Dunner. “It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m trying to remain humble,” admitted Kelerin with a smirk that suggested he wasn’t very much succeeding at it.

  “Humility’s for Prophets,” was Dunner’s response, and that seemed to settle it.

  They left the dining room and headed to the Rec Center where the main Results & Rankings board was displayed. The Administration hung the board there hoping a constant reminder of where the Students stood would keep them from wasting too much time unwinding and motivate them to push their studies even harder. It worked on some, like Kelerin, backfired on others, like Dunner.

  When they got to the Rec Center several Students were deep into the rounds of a Tower Ball tournament: A game involving a metal ball controlled by magnetic gloves worn by the players, the object of which was to try and knock down each other’s Towers; stacks of 20 square blocks set up on opposite sides of a rimmed table serving as the battlefield. Other Students were sitting on couches and talking about courses and life and everything in between. When Kelerin and Dunner walked in they immediately occupied center stage.

  Everyone knew why they were there. Waiting for the refresh of the Results Board was silly, but people got into it and it became one of those silly things that sometimes become an actual thing. Other Students from the dorms caught wind that a thing was in the works and it wasn’t long before the Rec Center was completely packed.

  There was even a countdown. Kelerin didn’t know who started it. It was just another one of those things that happens at a thing. Someone began counting down out loud, “10, 9...” and everyone joined in, “..8, 7, 6...”

  When the refresh finally occurred it was beyond embarrassing. Whooping cheers had barely left the mouths of the crowd before morphing into “huh’s” and “uh’s” and other universal expressions of confusion. All the results and rankings were there, but in place of where the KelerinValix duel should have been, a single line read:

  NO CONTEST, PENDING INQUIRY.

  Which everyone knew could only mean one thing - cheating. Dunner was the first to react. “No way - uh, uh - they are not getting away with this.”

  He shouldered his way through the crowd with Kelerin calling after him, “Dunner, wait,” but Dunner was already walking out the door.

  “You won that duel, Kel!” he declared, one finger pointing up over his head for emphasis, voice trailing off behind him from the outside.

  Kelerin caught up with Dunner shortly thereafter and the two made straight for the Headmaster’s office. Now they were waiting for Professor Halbard, the Headmaster’s personal assistant, to acknowledge them once again after he told them, in no uncertain terms, to sit down until he finished filing and annotating whatever it was he was filing and annotating, but if he heard one more outburst like the one they (meaning Dunner) displayed upon barging into his office, he would throw them out on their faces and personally see to it their names were on the sanitation roster every single day for the rest of the semester.

  And so, quietly they sat.

  “Academics,” declared Dunner, the single word serving at once as a derogatory insult to both Halbard and the judging committee, and as a pronouncement of something generally wrong with society as a whole.

  “You do know we’re Academics?” pointed out Kelerin.

  “You are.”

  “You are too.”

  “Not after this semester.”

  Kelerin kept quiet for a bit, the silence noticeably hanging in the air. Halbard’s puttering about at his desk gave off a background noise somehow making the lack of conversation seem strained. “Alright, enough of this,” said Kelerin, at last. “I’m going to go see if I can hurry this up.”

  “Good idea. Let’s tell this-”

  “Just me, Dunner.”

  Dunner threw Kelerin a confrontational look. “I am not letting you give in on this one, Kel.”

  “Who’s giving in?”

  “You always do this. You’re always looking to be the good little Student, letting the Administration walk all over you and then defending them for it when they’re done.”

  Kelerin sighed. “Dunner, listen to me. This is about strategy. Do we wanna just yell to make ourselves feel better or do we actually want to accomplish something. If we double team Halbard we’ll lose. He has the power. We have to redirect it against him.”

  “Creator help me, you’re back to WateRen again.”

  “Four time divisional champ.”

  “You’re not giving in.”

  “I’m not giving in.”

  “That was your duel.”

  “That was my duel.”

  Pause.

  “OK,” said Dunner, acquiescing. He settled back on the bench they were sitting on.

  “You don’t have to wait for me, either.”

  “Wow. You really don’t want me to be here, do you?”

  “C’mon, that’s not it - since when are you so sensitive, anyway? - It’s just that this could take a while. You should head back.”

  Dunner relented. Standing up and walking toward the entranceway, he said, “Fine, but I don’t want you back in my room without securing your former place in the official rankings.”

  “Our room.”

  “Not until you get your place back.”

  “You need that in writing?”

  “I might.” Dunner turned the corner and left.

  Kelerin stood staring after his longtime roommate. Dunner was clearly taking the coming end of their last semester, and what he believed to be his last days at the Academy, pretty hard. The end of their Student years would not be the end of their friendship, Kelerin was sure of that. Of course things would be different, but things were always changing. Maybe Kelerin felt the way he did because the Academy had always been his home, but it was never Dunner’s, even though he’d lived there most of his life. Now Dunner believed he was going to have to return to his actual home, a place he was never truly… well, at home with. He wanted to speak to Dunner about all this, flush it out. He just didn’t know when. In any case, Dunner had told him not to even show up without the duel ‘re-won’, as it were, so, first things first.

  Glancing down at his left arm he decided the sling made him look weak and removed it, chucking it in a waste bin next to the bench. Rolling out his shoulder and finding it felt pretty OK, if a bit stiff, he drew in a deep breath, composed himself the way he would before a duel, and set his eyes on his next target - Halbard.

  The anteroom was the shape of a large dome with ornate wooden archway-frames built into the walls, converging at the ceiling’s center. Halbard’s desk was placed in the middle of the room under this convergence along a radius dividing the entering half of the antechamber from the half where the doors to the Headmaster’s office were located. The first half was empty save for a single bench used by waiting visitors. It wasn’t a large bench, sitting flush against the left-hand wall and molding itself to a small section of the room’s curvature. Past Halbard’s desk and directly opposite the entrance, the intricately carved wooden doors. Tall, thick and narrow, they were set inside the back-most center archway. On the far side of those double doors was the Headmaster’s office. To get inside, Kelerin would first have to make it past Halbard, who sat at his desk like a defending soldier behind a terrain-dividing trench. Gathering himself, he approached.

  “Professor?”

  No answer.

  “Professor?”

  Halbard sighed, continuing to shuffle his papers. “I told you, you’re going to have to wait till-”

  “I didn’t cheat.”

  At this, Halbard looked up. “No one said you did, Student.”
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  “I was stripped of my win.”

  “Pending investigation.”

  “Into whether I cheated or not.”

  Halbard thumbed an unlocking sensor on a drawer in the side of his desk, opened it, and pulled out the Wave Whip Kelerin used for his duel. He held it out accusingly. “Into how a Teacher-Class Wave Whip set for Deflection could launch someone crouched behind a Rippler through a wall?”

  “And you think I cheated?”

  “It’s irrelevant what I think,” said Halbard, returning the Whip to its drawer and thumbing the sensor, locking it away again, “What matters is what the investigation reveals.”

  Kelerin threw up his hands in frustration and turned to storm off. He only managed a single step before turning back just as quickly. Planting his hands on the desk, he said, “If you would just allow me to speak with the Headmaster, I can-.”

  Halbard froze, papers in hand. Raising his eyebrows, he shifted his gaze down to where Kelerin’s hands rested on his desk. Kelerin followed Halbard’s look and registered the warning. Slowly, he removed his hands. “Please.”

  “That would be impossible at the moment-”

  “But I have to-”

  “Because,” Halbard continued, cutting off this latest outburst before it began, “he’s not here.”

  “He’s not here?”

  Professors weren’t ones for answering redundant questions, especially from Students. Kelerin tried to be more specific. “Where is he, then?”

  “I don’t believe that is any business of yours, Student.”

  This time Kelerin managed to control himself without any help from one of Halbard’s disapproving looks. “What I meant was, is he on campus?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  Silence.

  “For Creator’s sake, I didn’t cheat!”

  Halbard gave Kelerin a long, hard look. Several moments of awkward silence later and he seemed to come to the decision that it would be best to reserve judgment. “I don’t know when he’ll be back. I suggest coming by tomorrow.”